My daughter is now 6 months old and definately showing signs of readiness for solids as she has two bottom teeth and has been grabbing at our food, utensils, cups, etc. So we decided to start her on a little banana. She has been getting about an ounce of banana each day at least once, sometimes twice. Saturday and Sunday I substituted the banana for pear and avocado. Still she is only getting about an ounce of solids a day. The rest of the time she is getting breast milk and is nursed on demand. No formula.

I was expecting her stool to firm up, but still be fairly loose. :o Ok, now this is probably more info than you will need, but it may help in determining if she is having constipation issues. Her stool is the consistency of soft clay. You can squish it and it will retain it's shape. It doesn't feel hard at all, though. I was not concerned about this until a little while ago. I had laid her down for a nap and 15 minutes later she started crying like she was in pain. So I rushed in to check and decided to change her diaper. Well she was pushing one out and seemed to be straining a bit.

So, is it constipation or is she just not used to pushing out firmer stool? Could the firmer stool be concerning her because she is not used to it? If it is constipation what should I do? Personally, I am thinking about laying off the solids for a few days.

March 20th, 2006, 06:55 PM

LLL_Jolie

Re: Starting solids and constipation

Welcome, Beth! *waves*

Constipation is defined is dry, hard, difficult to pass stools (think rabbit pellets or ping pong balls). From your description, this doesn't sound like what your dd is experiencing. ;)

It could very well be that your dd is uncomfortable because the stool is firmer. :) In this case, it wouldn't be a bad idea to lay off the solids for a day or so. If you choose to do this, when you re-add them, consider nursing before offering solids. You may even wish to offer a few sips of expressed breastmilk or water with her solid meals to keep things loose. ;)